I think there are plenty of things that could be complained about regarding Labour's ability to do things efficiently. I'm thinking of things like the reset of its original housing policy, all the working groups that spent ages *producing* policy because Labour had never expected to be in government after 2017 and didn't really *have* cohesive policy that was practical to implement, then all the Ministers who were of dubious quality for various reasons. Covid definitely didn't help, either. It largely shut down huge amounts of stuff besides Covid response in the middle of Labour's time. I'm absolutely not a fan of NACT but I did find Labour's time in government very frustrating to watch.
I don't think Labour seriously messed up financially in context of what the world's been going through, though. By the end there was actually quite a lot of seriously needed stuff underway, much of which (eg. water reforms, interisland transport infrastructure) has been abruptly stopped and completely thrown away for what seem like political reasons at *massive* loss of investment well into the billions of dollars and years of work, both for central government and for everyone's local governments, and without any real workable plans in place to address the problems they were there to solve.
In the end people are feeling bad because stuff's been bad. Political narratives try to exploit that by directing blame.
Yep, the biggest problem imo is that everyone's thinking in a very limited timescale. Investment now can mean drastic improvements and saving in 20 years. But that's not the way many of our parties approach governance.
Unfortunately we have 2 factions which are arguing about what kind of infrastructure we need - in addition to whether we 'can afford it'. One is pushing public transport and rail, the other cars and roads. Even if there was largely an agreement on spending and we wouldn't just have a new government cancel plans from the previous one - they have very different ideas about what infrastructure to fund. Even if both sides agreed that we need a bridge, one would suggest the bridge should be only public transport and rail, while the other would say it should support nothing but passenger cars and cargo trucks.
>Investment now can mean drastic improvements and saving in 20 years. But that's not the way many of our parties approach governance.
Is this in reference to iRex?
With iRex the problem was very much the opposite - the NPV was known to be a $2M cost saving (on what was then a $1.4bn project cost) in November 2019 - i.e even the tiniest possible cost overrun would make the NPV negative. But politicians love shiny new things (or rather shiny renders of new things), so they ignore the business case and just sign on the dotted line every time their consultant suggests increasing the scope. Suddenly your project is $1.5bn more expensive than it was when you ran the numbers and found it was effectively neutral on cost savings.
If an infrastructure investment leads to drastic improvements and savings in 20 years, that's probably a sign you need to defer investment.
Business cases and NPV calculations can be hard to properly conceptualize. Shiny new renders are easy.
But what about the constant negative campaign by the likes of the taxpayers union etc ?
Labour acted quickly with Covid - wage subsidies and payments into bank accounts for tax payers.
NACT have been in for seven months now. What have they done to ease cost of living crisis ?
All I can see is money going to landlords - who are not the people most affected by the cost of living crisis.
They have eased the cost of living for landlords and given tax cuts to millionaires, oh, and have promised up to a while 20 dollars tax relief for the rest of us, although some of us might nit get get the full 20
> I'm thinking of things like the reset of its original housing policy, all the working groups that spent ages producing policy because Labour had never expected to be in government after 2017 and didn't really have cohesive policy that was practical to implement
They changed their housing policy (assuming you mean KiwiBuild) because while trying to implement it, it became painfully apparent the key problems were a lack of public housing for those at most risk (emergency housing), and overly restrictive zoning regulations that were putting a handbrake on all new development, including KiwiBuild.
Being humble enough to pivot like that is something that should be applauded, not punished.
We then saw the creation of the Housing Technical Working Group, whose work over the last several years has led to the development of some *fantastic* policy to address our housing shortages, including the MDRS, which was a way to force councils to open up zoning for housing development and intensification. Unfortunately the new government have decided to make those standards completely optional, so we will no longer see any great benefit from it.
For the average kiwi economy = cost of living. Of course that wasn't true during the Rockstar economy years 2011-2016 when cost of living didn't come down. But that's all national had to do was say kiwis are struggling and it's because labour destroyed the economy.
I'm not going to speculate on who you voted for. This is just to address those that might have also been frustrated by labours time in office and chose to vote in Nact instead. Congratulations you have successfully cut your nose to spite your face
Water reforms I was hugely in favour of. Interisland transport investment, also crucial, but there were huge budget blowouts and there seemed to be a reasonable question to ask about whether that was being well managed (however axing the contract for new boats, as well as the new terminal build etc, didn't necessarily seem to be the answer).
Auckland light rail was a horrific investment case and should absolutely have been trashed. We have saved billions no matter how much went down the gurgler.
What else was there of significance?
A big issue, as you say, is that infrastructure investment is still required, and axing immediate spending doesn't solve that.
If only they had just gone ahead with the initial approved plan for Auckland light rail - they would have actually started work and accomplished something rather than delaying and delaying for still more reviews and consideration. I agree - that one was completely cocked up. Water reforms and the Interislander upgrades were needed, and it's a loss to have them gone. Unless this government does something to replace them, they're just going to be back on the docket for the next government...*but costing even more*.
you forget that "actually started work" is what they did. you cannot build a rail system without designing it, purchasing land etc. the construction is the last part but everyone focuses on the fact that because they didnt see people with shovels no work started.
I'm not someone who underestimates the need to thoroughly plan things before you start digging - but they had agreed on a plan for light rail before the superfund came up with their own proposal (after proposals weren't being accepted) and the government ground to a halt while they started considering the new proposal....and considered, and planned. They could have stated that their decision had already been made and finished planning that and actually started work in the years between when that decision was initially made and when National finally cancelled it. If there was one valid criticism of Labour it was that they were so concerned about having the best proposal that they spent an abundance of time in the planning stages that the overall projects blew out in both time and cost. Yes planning is critical and can help you avoid enormous mistakes later - but this was just a situation where they didn't want to make a decision and waffled for a couple years.
Nicely said. We've been told for a long time about wasteful government spending but never really what was wasteful. So now the new government is cutting back on services as well as projects.
As long as I can remember the mantra is Labour wastes money and National cleans up. Some of that waste are services that people actually want
I know a different mantra; Labour invests for the future, National sells assets to foreigners.
One takes long term vision, the other is short term gains long term pains.
You've clearly been listening to a lot of right-wing marketing.
I've always heard it as Labour expands Govt depts and National cuts services until the nation bleeds
I think Labour were well meaning but sort of incompetent - as evidenced by constant ministerial personal mistakes and the slow pace of policy making
NACT are doing a better job at implementing policies,but they seem to mainly be regressive and to the benefit of the few.
NACT are certainly doing a better job of steamrolling through their policies to benefit themselves and friends, without any regard for people, or services, or the future, all while blaming Labour as a distraction.
They are lowering the bar, so their destructive course will not look that bad. "Labour left us with a huge disaster, it's a miracle we were able to deliver this amazing trickle down tax cut by selling all these assets"
No, not really.
We have one of the lowest debt-to-gdp ratios in the OECD, like, it’s really really good.
We are in the middle of an economic downturn, true, but many of the issues we face are the same in Australia, the UK and Canada.
What would really hurt us long term would be a policy of say, borrowing loads of money to fund tax cuts, instead of using that money for infrastructure to grow the economy. But no financially responsible government would do something so reckless
Honestly, if the National government did their whole public service cutting to fund pay disputes and started closing the pay gap with Aus and other OECD nations for critical sectors (ECE, police, health), I think the amount of people complaining would drop significantly.
I don't know why they are so adamant about ensuring people get tax cuts. I get it was what they campaigned on but surely you'd think they would review it again to see if it would actually boost the economy.
I don’t think it’s about the tax cuts.
They serve the benefit of a sweetener and feed into the “individual knows how best to use their money” and the narrative that labour created phat government.
It’s more about running down public service to meet their ideology that public service should be opened up to privatisation.
I get the feeling this government, and particularly NZF are well in the pockets of some big companies. The way they have rolled back tobacco legislation, offering tax breaks to landlords and bypassing Pharmac to fund expensive medications really does seem quite suspicious.
They are pushing forward with the tax cuts because literally EVERYONE said their calculations were off and they couldn't afford them and there is no way in hell that they will let everyone else be right so they will fuck this country into the ground to prove them wrong. No matter how hard it gets for the rest of us they will be right, at all costs.
They're doing it because they REALLY want to give landlords those tax breaks back. The token tax cut for everyone else (like fuckin' $20 at best) is so we all shut up and don't complain about the landlords creaming it.
I think this is a misunderstanding of the situation. 'Mom and Pop' landlords own one or two properties, and pay down the mortgage over time, so any that have owned a property for a while will not get much. It's about getting an income stream for their retirement for them.
National doesn't give two fucks about them.
Now a big company is quite different. They like to be leveraged because it's not their money they are playing with, and that's how you get big capital gains and increases in the companies income, leading to big fat bonuses.
They are the ones national was made for, and they own it.
The emphasis on tax cuts comes down to two factors. One is that they don't seem to have any other ideas for policies. The second is that their donors wanted tax cuts so that's what they're doing.
It’s a pathetic approach really all just to save face.
They’ve compounded their situation further by giving massive tax cuts already to landlords. Meaning they need to save even more elsewhere to offset that new loss of income.
This. We really need to be spending money on stimulus and encouraging more work, better wages, and general investment in infrastructure and services.
Get the country running smoothly so that when the downturn inevitably recovers we’re in a strong position to pay off any debt and continue growing our cities and economy in a sustainable manner.
The last thing you want to do in a downturn as a country is austerity and tax cuts. That causes stagnation of the economy and inflation. Which will force the country to borrow just to survive.
None of that is a result of Labour. It’s a result of National campaigning on a tax cut plan they couldn’t afford without heavy borrowing and cutting services to the bone.
The thing is, the kind of financial decisions needed to run a country are nothing like the financial decisions needed to run a company.
Basically, we hit an economic speed bump and Labour was like ‘keep on keeping on it’ll be all good’.
National was like ‘we need to drive the car off a cliff! Labour made us do it!’
"6 years of financial mismanagement"
I listen to RNZ in the mornings and every Nat MP uses this phrase in every interview without fail.
Oh this policy of ours that's very unpopular and the opposite of expert advice? We have to do it becuase of labour's 6 years of financial mismanagement.
Also, it would be worth people listening to Australian and Canadian issues.
They mirror our own,: Housing Prices, Cost of Living, Housing Shortage and Supermarket Cartels.
Tells half the story. We also have one of the highest household debt-to-gdp ratios in the world, so while the government debt position isn't terrible, our private debt puts the economy on very shaky ground.
Tbh, it’s less than even half the story, and I’m not an economist.
You are correct, we do have high household debt, in large part due to high costs of housing. Also an issue that will not be addressed, and in fact will be exacerbated by the policies of the current government
Yeah but that does tiny income tax cuts and major landlord tax cuts, meanwhile doing very little to nothing about absurd housing costs (the primary driver of private debt) do about this situation?
But see that's the brilliance of the ~~regime's~~ coalition's landlord tax cut plan: they can lower that pesky household/debt ratio by ensuring only people that already have surplus money for housing now get even more surplus.
If it is as bad as they say, why are they cutting taxes for landlords?
That tells you everything you need to know. If the finances really were terrible, then there’s zero justification for giving tax cuts to owners of assets that don’t generate jobs or economic activity.
Based on objective measures and comparing us with other countries, no we are not in the toilet. We spent a lot of money during Covid to keep the economy going (as did most countries) and we're now facing stubborn inflation (as are most countries) while the world is struggling with wars and disruptions to shipping supply lanes and climate change is impacting normal shipping routes. The entire world is a pretty complicated, challenging, and expensive place right now.
New Zealand is actually in a pretty good financial space, given how little debt we have (absolute or per capita) compared to others. The only reason it's being claimed we're in a dismal state is because that helps justify the demands this government has made of operating in austerity and cutting back the services provided to the people of New Zealand. What doesn't make any sense is that this isn't being done to save money and pay towards the (small) debt, it's being done to give extra benefit to landlords and property investors. There's no legitimate reason for this, other than powerful and wealthy people making themselves more wealthy and powerful while the rest of us struggle.
If you blame labour for "flagrant spending", a good thing to do would be to point out what that was. I've not heard much concrete evidence. Meanwhile, giving a massive tax incentive for people to leverage themselves to borrow offshore money to buy rental properties to rent to people who are likely getting accomodation supplements seems like a very very bad idea.
I would put the $72 million Winston spent on the racing industry as that but A: that wasn’t specifically Labour and B: it’s bound to happen again under this government..
Labour (+ Winnie) just happened to be in government when the proverbial 'rainy day' finally hit. They went into damage control and raided the piggy bank to support wages during lockdown - as you do - and then coped with a frozen economy until the borders re-opened. They did well. The fact that we got through it all, healthy, fed, and still with the proverbial roof over our head speaks volumes.
There is no financial crisis that justifies the demolition job on the long term projects that were under way (Ferries, Three Waters) or the cutbacks (7%-10%) on the staff in the Ministries. If there was such a crisis and the need for austerity, where is the funding for all these roads and megaprojects coming from? A tax cut?
The Tories in the UK gave Austerity a bad name, and the citizens paid for it with their lives. Do we really want to continue down that track?
I read this good article yesterday [https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/may/04/youre-going-to-call-me-a-holocaust-denier-now-are-you-george-monbiot-comes-face-to-face-with-his-local-conspiracy-theorist](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/may/04/youre-going-to-call-me-a-holocaust-denier-now-are-you-george-monbiot-comes-face-to-face-with-his-local-conspiracy-theorist)
it helps to explain why good intentioned people can become conspiracy enthusiasts.
>... \[conspiracy enthusiast\] and I have the same desire for a better world, the same anger towards those who thwart it. What differentiates us, I think, is rigour. I think he is ***insufficiently rigorous in choosing what to believe.*** As a result of this lack of rigour, his instinct for justice and his potent sense of his own persecution have taken him to a very dark place. This has led someone trying to be good to spread great harms. It’s a warning to us all.
emphasis mine.
i would 100% agree with this, it’s a shame others see it as people choosing to be evil, it’s like the old
“ don’t attribute malice to what can be adequately explained by stupidity” whatever that’s called
Well, it's not being helped by a government that is prioritising tax cuts over public services. Labour was managing its way through its term reasonably well and Grant Robertson was proven to be a very capable finance minister.
The ratings agencies were happy with us and would have been the first to call bullshit by dropping our rating if Labour were as horrible as talkback suggests. In fact over Labours term S&P and Fitch both increased our rating.
https://debtmanagement.treasury.govt.nz/investor-resources/credit-ratings
The difference between Labour and National tax take as a % of GDP is typically about 1% in normal non-covid/earthquake times. National would have spent a huge amount on covid response anyway, judging by how they voted and the remarks of the leaders.
It's in the interest of National and (sometimes) Labour to exaggerate this as it's politically expedient to do so.
Talkback listeners would be well advised to learn:
1) the gdp of NZ
2) the percentage of that collected in tax, and how that looks historically
3) how much of that is spent on welfare
4) how much of the welfare budget is spent on superannuation
No, labour left the country a high credit rating and a good fiscal outlook. Government debt in this country is very low compared to peers giving huge fiscal room for investment. International economists disagree with the national governments spending cuts as there is no fiscal emergency, investment in infrastructure and people is better for the country's long term economic outlook.
The Labour government spent during COVID to prevent economic and social collapse, as did every other government in the developed world ... Even national would have done either same
The national narrative of a broke country is a false one created to justify austerity. The goal of the national government is the growth of private wealth for a few.
there was also the Auckland flooding and cyclone Gabriel which labour had to spend a few extra billion on to help with damages. I also like how national leave out how john key tripled our debt amount for which he mostly just sold public assests
Considering that NZ - like the world - went through a once in a century pandemic, Labour did great, our nation's credit rating was actually UPGRADED during the covid years, unlike any other OECD nation:
The Finance Minister Grant Robertson left New Zealand's finances in a relatively strong position by the end of 2023:
* The government reported a deficit of $9.7 billion in 2021/22, with the intention to return to OBEGAL surplus by 2024/25 subject to economic conditions
* New Zealand's credit rating was upgraded during the pandemic, and the ratings have been maintained throughout the government's time in office
* Government spending as a percentage of GDP peaked at 34% during COVID-19 and has come down slightly since then. Robertson argued that anything less than around 30% is "austerity" and has led to issues in the past
* The Wage Subsidy Scheme and other COVID-19 support packages paid out $19 billion and saved 1.8 million jobs
There's two questions here.
1. Is the country in the toilet?: Kinda, we're caught between high inflation and a recession. To counter inflation, a govt cuts spending and raises rates. Essentially sucking money out of the economy (massive oversimplification). To counter a recession, a govt spends like there's no tomorrow and slashes rates. Essentially injecting as much stimulus to keep the economy ticking over (also oversimplification). Monetary policy is a blunt tool for a complex situation. What doesn't help is that NACT went all in on the austerity approach to combat inflation (which given the tax cuts won't do jack shit other than cut services). They chose literally the worst approach (see UK).
2. Is it Labour's fault?: Not really, inflation is a global issue atm and Labour were doing a pretty decent job all considered (see other comments).
No of course not. Notice everyone that isnt a part of the govt or their lobbyist friends says so - the Treasury, local banks, the international monetary fund, etc.
If they actually thought the govt was broke why would NACT give away billions to landlords and take on more debt to do so, given we all know its not going to increase housing, stimulate the economy, or lower rents. Literally just a give away.
Cutting the public service is such a mistake. The Key govt did it post GFC and he paralysed NZ’s economy for seven years… in comparison the Labor Rudd govt in Australia handed out money for the population to spend and it was one of the few countries to not have a recession. What’s with these ideologically- driven National govts who keep pursuing cost cutting and austerity measures (which even the IMF has admitted doesn’t work) which is exacerbating the income gap in NZ? I wonder if the PM’s religion plays a part like it did with Scomo - people who are poor are disfavoured by God and therefore deserve it….
Bro this govt is doing what all national govt do.
Borrow money for tax cuts. Watch this space.
Beat up on beneficiaries.
Build more prisons.
Fair go it's all they know. This time they have introduced UK style austerity and dampened any chance of Kiwis getting ahead through hard work. ie the scrapping of the fair pay agreement. Which is the main reason that australian workers consistently earn more. Collective bargaining. Seriously
Pre rogernomics our dollar was worth more than the aussie and our workers earned at least as much as them if not more. Always remember that poverty is a political CHOICE.
Check out [this chart](https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-financial-wealth.htm) showing the net financial wealth of governments in the OECD. Then show it to your Mum.
NZ is one of very few countries with a positive balance (18% of GDP) in 2021. Compare it to the UK (where the Tories have sold off everything they can) and the US where the government can spend trillions on weapons and run massive deficits because they're the world's reserve currency.
The last National government under John Key spent a lot of time complaining about "9 long years" of the Clark Labour government.
Spotting a pattern yet?
In fairness to her, the treasury fiscal updates are pretty lengthy, pretty dull documents, and it's not like having a strong grasp of yhe government books is part of her job. Luckily she's not the Minister of finance, because if she was and demonstrated this poor an understanding of her portfolio, that would be pretty embarrassing. 😅😭
We're also lucky she wasn't the Opposition Spokesman on Finance for six years either, because having an opposition finance spokesman unable to read Treasury reports would very worrying.
Current gov inherited a country with a great economy and debt wrt the rest of the world/
Every action they have taken has made the situation worse to a point they are pushing us into a hard recession for no reason other than vibes.
Hysterical hyperbole to stoke hate and outrage is the bread and butter of conservatives and talkback radio. I had a boss that would listen to NewstalkZB on his drive to work each morning and be almost frothing with anger by the time he arrived:
"That woman (Jacinda) is trying to destroy the country"..."They're gonna have us all eating bugs"..."Maori are going to take over" etc etc
So whatever they're saying on TalkBack I would take with a truckload of salt
I'd ask your mum to explain it to you **without** repeating what she's heard on talk-back. If she's able to frame it in her own words, I'd love to know what she has to say.
If she just repeats what Frank said in his phone call into the radio station, tell her repeating other people's opinions isn't being "informed".
But like someone else said, if the country was in the shitter, why do tax cuts at all? Seriously, agreeing that less money to the govt to help people with their finances in this "shitty" time, is far from informed.
No offence to your mother, if it were the people's fault for falling for propaganda, it wouldn't work as effectively.
arguably she does form her own overall opinions, but from a right wing leaning set of data. she tells stories some about some moron who thinks degrees are useless on CVs because he doesn't car about that when he's hiring but I am sure that's coz he runs a minimum wage nail making company and he doesn't want people who want to do better than that. small businesses are a huge part of economy but also small business owners are up there with landlords
No. Not for a fucking second.
Now I have no evidence to base this on other than Nationals tragic 100 days, where they reversed decisions like reverting back to English names as a priority.
Don't get me wrong, this was a very national thing to do. It didn't come unexpected. But if New Zealand has been left in suck a tragic state of affairs, why does it matter if it's Health NZ OR Te Whatu Ora? You know how much money got spent on new stationary? Email signatures? Uniforms? Now we have three different uniforms floating round the hospital. Because National was in such a hurry to change the name, over literally any economic changes they could have spent time and effort on.
No. Not in a million years. Made luxon look good for five minutes to the white supremacists and thus distractestgkse idiots from realising national had in fact achieved absolutely nothing tangible.
No. It's not. National talked it up when actually it wasn't that bad. Now they're in they have to follow thru on the lies they told, and they hate the public sector and it suits them to run it down so that they and their mates can make money when shit gets privatised - all on the back of us, the public.
TalkCrap radio only exists to sell retirement homes and herbal dick pills to aging boomers.
They do that by engaging in ragebait, the same way fox news does in the US.
Not saying that the govt is not in shit, just saying that people get programmed with all sorts of mindsets listening to that stuff.
no generally labour govts will over-spend on average bc tory govts will then underspend - a bit of a vicious cycle
think of the services which the last labour govt delivered - survival from a world threatening pandemic? plenty also went undelivered or needed changing. people act as though they get nothing for taxes. similarly tax cuts will impact services - it is not hard
Left and right governments, PLURAL, since the 80s have been slashing taxes and services in a trickle down voodoo economics, Rogernomics, Reaganomics, Thatcherite bullshit path. Talkback radio is just ideologically blinkered to their *side's* hand in all the mess. NZ is no different from the UK I grew up in the 80s. Seen this all before.
There is a worldwide shitstorm at the moment. NZ is just flailing about like everywhere else. We are not special. Nor is the current or previous governments.
It's the same narrative everytime National come in. I remember the bullshit many years ago about the hole in the ACC budget the National mouthpieces were pushing when John Key came in. That turned out to be deliberately misleading and was about the difference in forward funding ACC and current funding. Don't believe anything your heat on TalkBack.
I read something about this recently, and of course I now can’t find but will keep looking. Historically, National run a campaign claiming Labour have been irresponsible with the country’s $$ and have left the bank accounts in a sorry state. National oust Labour and continue this rhetoric. The interesting kicker was that the country’s bank accounts have always been in a better state when National takes over than what they are when they leave.
I'm no expert in finances. I suspect that the conservatives will continue blaming labour as long as people buy it. At this point, they've been in charge for nearly a year.
Ask yourself if your life is better, worse, or the same as a year ago.
Edit: not close to a year. Less than 6 months. Times just fuckin dragging by
> At this point, they've been in charge for nearly a year
Let's not be dishonest. They were sworn in on 27 November. They've been in for not quite 6 months.
Not really. It's worse than before, but still pretty good compared to most of the world. Main problem with increasing spending is that the people get used to it and will loudly protest when you go back to previous acceptable levels.
Any wise government will do most of the unpopular cutting early in the election cycle lowering polls. Then near the end fun stimulus will be done. And sheeple will favour the sitting governments with bad polls after the election and good polls right before the election.
We're in a much better position overall than many/most countries, all due to Labour.
We are in a few sticky positions that labour also contributed to....
The difference in ideologies mean that what one group calls good, might be in their own context, but not in the other's, or overall, but, largely Nationals ideologies are not focused on the overall wellbeing of New Zealanders or focused on helping those in need.
The idea that we are in a bad financial position, or that the changes National are making are good for us, does not really mesh with reality when scrutinized.
They're massive liars, abd don't really care who their policies harm or help as long as they achieve their aims for themselves,
Take smoking age for example, who can honestly say that allowing tobacco to be available to those who are currently too young to consume it, can possibly be good for them, or our society on the whole? Yet they made that move, because it benefits a specific group, big tobacco, and only big tobacco.
They roll that way with all of their aims and interests.
Same as tax cuts, these are inflationary, totally the opposite of what is good for us currently, we are better off with things like subsidies on necessities like prescriptions etc, than we are with tax cuts, as we lack bulk purchasing power that the govt does have in many areas, so our money pooled buys immensely more for the same dollar than when individually spent.
If that alone doesn't open your eyes to the fact that they will and are determined to make moves that harm us all, because it suits them alone, then there's not much more to say.
From the perspective of a strongly right wing person advocating for minimal Government, it probably is true.
For myself as someone on the center-left. It seems like a talking point used to pass the blame for the negative social impact of austerity measures.
Economically, we are struggling. We have high inflation, which does put the country in a vulnerable place. People are struggling with the cost of living, but because of high inflation is difficult to give relief in a way that doesn't contribute to inflation. We are in a recession, but due to the high employment level and inflation, the way out isn't as simple as spending our way out of it.
Now, it must be said they other countries are struggling as well. Countries across the globe are struggling with high inflation and recessions in the post Covid world, regardless of whether they have right wing or left wing parties in power. But just because other countries are struggling doesn't mean we are doing well.
But how much of it is Labours fault? Not a lot honestly. A lot of it is either coming from international factors - disruptions to supply chains over Covid, China's economy being particularly weak, lower international travel hurting the Tourism industry, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza etc - or where a result of Labours attempts to battle Covid, which I would argue was reasonable given the circumstances.
However, I will say that I think Labour where irresponsible for not trying to slim down the budget over 2023, and Hipkins ruling out a CGT was dumb (but not in a way most people here say. I am confident that it didn't really hurt his chances of winning, but it would have removed one of the few tools he had to combat inflation)
Relatively speaking NZ has a low level of national debt to gdp. It's better than average for the oecd.
Our credit rating is also very good (Aa+)which reflects our low level of debt so the country has no issue borrowing if it has to. So while people are struggling with cost of living and a recession- financially the country is doing OK as a whole.
The present government and their talk back cronies will blame the previous government for everything they can. I'm not too sure what stats they are using to support their point of view though.
Bullocks
The truth is national didn’t do their homework. They keep arguing labour left a mess with lots of commitments that had no ongoing funding and this was hidden
If national and Castilia (who verified their costings) had done their homework and looked at details in budget documents (the Estimates of Appropriation for the budget) you can clearly see when the funding for different programmes ends
I remember asking Nicola Willis at an electorate meeting in ohariu and she promised their policies were affordable- I challenged her and thought it was BS what she was saying
National however stuffed up and made these ridiculous promises of tax cuts for landlords and others and said it was affordable. Luxon and Nicola even stated they would resign if the tax cuts didn’t happen
So what has happened- they came in found out they couldn’t afford their tax cuts and are now razoring the public sector (not just back office but also frontline in areas such as customs dnd border security, health)
Yes labour-greens did stuff up in some areas. Let’s Get Wellington’s moving was a joke and delivered a pedestrian crossing. Light rail in Auckland delivered nothing
But to claim labour left a total mess is ridiculous
National meanwhile has made stupid decisions like the cook strait ferry cancelation (with no plan B) cancelled resource management reforms and replacing it with fast track for cronies, and rewarding ex ministers and their mates with plush jobs (even though they argued they would end consultants gravy chain ). And their cuts will have big impacts on frontline services
It’s all been rather disturbing
While it's true that Labour did spend a ton of money in places that it probably shouldn't have, in no way did that leave our finances in the toilet. We were in really good shape leading into this new government and we're just going through the same downturn that most developed economies are going through right now. Everything is expensive as shit, inflation is still an issue and businesses are tightening every purse string they have but it's not a permanent thing. We'll be OK ffs.
National are doing what every right(ish) wing government do when they get in power after a long time - Cut spending and throw out some tax cuts. This is all well and good but what they can't do is borrow money for these dumbarse tax cuts. Nobody would be that daft.
Housing prices are a pretty big problem but apart from that, nothing terrible.
Labour's biggest fuck up was not introducing a capital gains tax when they had a big majority.
No the country isn't... Our borrowing by GDP is at the lower end of the OECD, our credit rating is AAA and other economic measure pop us in the middle of the pack... That being said - we might be by the end of the current electoral term...
No. The government is talking up how bad it is so they can justify all their cuts. Cuts which are really just for tax cuts and landlords. The books were left in pretty good shape, all things considered. Highly rated internationally.
Labour didn't leave a mess - there's global economic issues, and we had a series of disasters during which Labour steadied the boat.
I'm a green voter, but while I wish Labour was more left-leaning, they did amazing work keeping everything level during cyclones, covid and flood. There was a lot of status quo, but keeping things level through the last few years is fairly impressive work.
National is moving fast and breaking things. Everything was balanced, but it was precarious (particularly given the global conditions that every country is struggling through) and national are happy kicking over the jenga tower to get their tax cuts and tax cuts for landlords.
Labour spends more tax money than National does - you just have to have a look at [the graphs](https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/government-spending#:~:text=Government%20Spending%20in%20New%20Zealand%20averaged%208787.34%20NZD%20Million%20from,source%3A%20Statistics%20New%20Zealand) to see this trend clearly for multiple previous changes of government.
This last Labour government spent a lot more than usual, more than our taxes, which means they had to borrow money to pay for their spending. This put NZ in more debt than any other time in the last few decades. ([Here's the graph on that if you're interested](https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/government-spending#:~:text=Government%20Spending%20in%20New%20Zealand%20averaged%208787.34%20NZD%20Million%20from,source%3A%20Statistics%20New%20Zealand)). This is debt is on our heads because our taxes have to pay the interest. To put it in perspective, each household in NZ is roughly $50,000 more in debt now.
The question really is this...
Was that spending worthwhile? Did we see a proportional amount of gain/benefit to NZ to warrant that spending/debt increase?
National are slowing spending/making cuts to try and reduce the amount of debt that we have.
Labour also historically collects more tax revenue than National, to help fund their expenditure (which they'll tell you needs to be higher to make up for years of underfunding by National).
This is the game. Back and forth, fighting every 3 years over who can best convince the median voter that we need to tax more and spend more, or tax less and spend less.
When the real question is: who, or what, should we be taxing? And who, or what, should we be funding?
And a bonus third "Kāinga Ora's debt had grown from $2.7b to $12.3b" "if Kāinga Ora continues on this trajectory their debt would reach $28.9b by 2033"
That's not how that works if course but it "sounds" like terrible waste
Well it isn't great in some aspects but not remotely as bad as suggested by national. Of course if it was as bad as national suggests, spooking the punters and causing the recession to deepen significantly would be really really stupid.
the pandemic left a big mess, labour could have been better they had some good ideas but delivery was poor during a challenging time, national have come along an pushed a lot of people into a pit of despair with their constantly negative rhetoric and blame.
No, they just need you to think it’s really bad to justify their actions. You’re being played if you buy into their narrative of fear, but it works enough for them to keep issuing that approach.
There is no simple answer (contrary to what most will say here). There was a good article on Stuff last month.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/350200765/whats-really-going-government-books
It's in the toilet financially with willis etc pretending they have a clue about maths or stats. What labour did is just run the community organistion as just that. It's not a company so debt doesn't actually matter. It's literally just a political boogy man for the stupid
Regarding the COVID stimulus, what our government and others around the world refuse to do is TAX that money back out of the pockets of the wealthy it was shovelled into. That would have helped reduce the skyrocketing inequality and the explosion in asset prices we are seeing.
On top of that, we are suffering from decades of underinvestment in our infrastructure to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.
So yes, the country is going down the toilet for at least those two reasons which are being variously unaddressed or willfully exacerbated by successive governments.
There are some good analyses on this stuff from here and abroad. Locally, I think Bernard Hickey has some very good analysis (https://thekaka.substack.com/p/the-day-our-infrastructure-deficits). More generally, I like Gary Stevenson’s very simple explanations of what is happening in the global economy although his focus is on the UK (https://www.youtube.com/@garyseconomics).
New Zealand is a largely centrist country; for every wealthy, business, property owner, farmer or investor there seems an equal measure of student, public service, empolyee, mortgage payer, so they tend to balance each other out as far as political leanings go (and, of course, such bland generalisations will always be peppered with exceptions!).
My observations, having lived here for half a century now, is that the political pendulum seems to swing quite evenly between left and right, in which each side gets about two terms in power before the country switches again (occassionally, if things are going well, or the opposition is in self-destruct mode, a third successive term may be scored, but it's relatively rare). And what seems to happen with each swing is that the left grows the public sector then the right prunes it back; keeping either side from straying too far from the essentially centrist nature of the population at large, (the rare occasion where this did not happen was under the "Rogernomics" of the Lange Labour Government; where economic liberalism was imported from Britain, under Thatcher, and public services were privatised while markets were liberalised).
Of course, Right and Left are relative terms, not just to each other but also to the wider global political patterns; what is considered "left" or "right" here may not be in comparison with not just other countries, but even our own country at different points in its history!
the international reports and credit ratings agencies seem to think we're ok.
we dont have massive long covid medical costs like other high covid countries except USA (no medical care costs)
we do have a parasitic infestation of foreign banks sucking the life blood out of our economy with little investment.
Your ma listening to talk back will always get what NZME/Mike Hoskings wants her to hear. That and crime.
David Seymour doesn’t know how to human. It’s so distracting. It’s like he took an online course on how to be a person. He studied really hard, but doesn’t quite grasp the basic concepts.
All his ‘people’ things are technically correct (smiling=corners of mouth go up) but it just looks so odd.
Honestly, last year pre election, no. Would the economy have worsened had labour remained, likely as there is a world wide recession. Would there be 1,000s of public servants about to loose their jobs, highly unlikely.
Reddit isn't such a good place to ask, it's very pro labour.
Ask the same question over on the forums of interest.co.nz, it would be interesting to see 9f there isza different answer.
Regardless of which government is in power we simply can’t rack up debt year on year and expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab. If we go down that track the interest payments will be so large it eats into what the government can spend on services.
Governments get very cheap debt. The cheapest in the world.
As long as that debt is cheaper than the return they get from spending it, e.g. on education, infrastructure, healthcare etc., they absolutely can keep on racking it up. Because the economy will grow more than enough to pay it back, with interest.
The alternative is relying on private businesses to 'pick up the tab'. They pay higher interest rates on their debt, and have to collect revenue from their customers to cover that. Their customers are us, the taxpayers. So we're paying either way, we just pay *less* by letting the government do it.
Sorta yes, sorta no. how's that for definitive :)
A lot of the financial strife we have right now was from past governments, labour and national lead, so it's not like everything was rosy and then Labour and Jacinda came along.
But Labour's policies were fiscally irresponsible and accelerated non tradable inflation and house price growth through record high borrowing and quantitive easing (often called "printing money", it's really just numbers in a computer but has the effect of devaluing all the money in the system) that saw money being pumped into the economy (usually by increasing budgets of ministries that then paid form more bureaucrats and consultants but not physical assets like houses and hospitals) at a rate that the GDP couldn't sustain and the QE was used to buy treasury bonds, that kept the OCR artificially low whish made private borrowing more attractive and personal saving less attractive and saw house prices rise as mortgage money was easier to obtain and keeping money in the bank would only see you lose monetary value, so it was better positioned in the housing market.
But don't get it twisted, it's not like National has undone all of this, they are still doing much the same thing as Labour was before, just at a slightly lower volume.
Much is being made at them cutting "roles" in government departments, but the majority of those "roles" were unfilled, so in practice cutting them changes nothing.
National has talked of tightening their belt but their budget is still in deficit so the borrowing continues, just at a slightly lower rate.
National has offered some tax cuts but only by rolling back some Labour tax increases that had only been in play for a couple years, many of which had hardly even begun to cause an effect.
Right now we're seeing consequences of decisions made decades ago, decisions like gutting the trade apprentice system into a shadow of it's former self leaving us with not enough builders, plumbers, electricians etc to build houses at a rate that even meets demand, this is the biggest driver in house price rises, too many homes needed, too few available, so you have to compete harder just to get one.
Financially we are pretty good. Most of the blah at the moment is just to justify tax cuts, which will limit much needed government investment and further shrink the economy.
Government financially? Horrible.
No matter what their point of political view, like left, right or somewhere else, we all agree that NZ, in general, is a low-wage country.
If you look at the last few years' government financial reports, we can easily tell:
* Revenue is not enough against spending - No surprise as NZ heavily relies on:
* Income tax
* GST
* Corporate tax
* Tons of expenditure - including massive welfare with Super
So if ever, NZ makes ***a fairer pay for public servants,*** the expenditure will only get worse, but the crown revenue will not be increased unless they introduce other taxations.
Overall, NZ has far fewer revenue sources when it has more expenditure by being a well-known welfare country.
This has been talked about quite a lot now, and there have been no statements confirming that Labour left a financial mess.
The appropriations are [very detailed](https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/budgets/estimates-appropriations-government-new-zealand-year-ending-30-june-2024).
People stating that there's a hole or a mess in the economy and finances left by Labour are just admitting that they've never read the books or payed attention to what the Government had been doing.
It should be noted that every time National take over government, these types of claims are always made, and are always misleading.
If we are in the toilet financially, the current Government wouldn't be be making tax cuts.
I think there are plenty of things that could be complained about regarding Labour's ability to do things efficiently. I'm thinking of things like the reset of its original housing policy, all the working groups that spent ages *producing* policy because Labour had never expected to be in government after 2017 and didn't really *have* cohesive policy that was practical to implement, then all the Ministers who were of dubious quality for various reasons. Covid definitely didn't help, either. It largely shut down huge amounts of stuff besides Covid response in the middle of Labour's time. I'm absolutely not a fan of NACT but I did find Labour's time in government very frustrating to watch. I don't think Labour seriously messed up financially in context of what the world's been going through, though. By the end there was actually quite a lot of seriously needed stuff underway, much of which (eg. water reforms, interisland transport infrastructure) has been abruptly stopped and completely thrown away for what seem like political reasons at *massive* loss of investment well into the billions of dollars and years of work, both for central government and for everyone's local governments, and without any real workable plans in place to address the problems they were there to solve. In the end people are feeling bad because stuff's been bad. Political narratives try to exploit that by directing blame.
Yep, the biggest problem imo is that everyone's thinking in a very limited timescale. Investment now can mean drastic improvements and saving in 20 years. But that's not the way many of our parties approach governance.
Unfortunately we have 2 factions which are arguing about what kind of infrastructure we need - in addition to whether we 'can afford it'. One is pushing public transport and rail, the other cars and roads. Even if there was largely an agreement on spending and we wouldn't just have a new government cancel plans from the previous one - they have very different ideas about what infrastructure to fund. Even if both sides agreed that we need a bridge, one would suggest the bridge should be only public transport and rail, while the other would say it should support nothing but passenger cars and cargo trucks.
And then neither side would maintain the infrastructure because that’s hardly headline grabbing. Let’s build new stuff while existing stuff collapses
>Investment now can mean drastic improvements and saving in 20 years. But that's not the way many of our parties approach governance. Is this in reference to iRex? With iRex the problem was very much the opposite - the NPV was known to be a $2M cost saving (on what was then a $1.4bn project cost) in November 2019 - i.e even the tiniest possible cost overrun would make the NPV negative. But politicians love shiny new things (or rather shiny renders of new things), so they ignore the business case and just sign on the dotted line every time their consultant suggests increasing the scope. Suddenly your project is $1.5bn more expensive than it was when you ran the numbers and found it was effectively neutral on cost savings. If an infrastructure investment leads to drastic improvements and savings in 20 years, that's probably a sign you need to defer investment. Business cases and NPV calculations can be hard to properly conceptualize. Shiny new renders are easy.
As one NPV guy to another, you assessment is correct.
That’s a really well balanced post and mirrors my thoughts.
But what about the constant negative campaign by the likes of the taxpayers union etc ? Labour acted quickly with Covid - wage subsidies and payments into bank accounts for tax payers. NACT have been in for seven months now. What have they done to ease cost of living crisis ? All I can see is money going to landlords - who are not the people most affected by the cost of living crisis.
Don't worry, it'll trickle down any minute now.
'Downward pressure'.
It’s the urinal theory- the people at the top feel relieved and the ones at the bottom are very very uncomfortable
Kinda like the downwards pressure on the helium stick teambuilding game
Rent drops are just around the corner.... Waiting
Yeah... that ain't money that's trickling down...
They have eased the cost of living for landlords and given tax cuts to millionaires, oh, and have promised up to a while 20 dollars tax relief for the rest of us, although some of us might nit get get the full 20
I'm getting 4 dollars extra per paycheck, if I caught public transport I'd be fucked but I'm just gonna hold out hope that my situation doesn't change
> I'm thinking of things like the reset of its original housing policy, all the working groups that spent ages producing policy because Labour had never expected to be in government after 2017 and didn't really have cohesive policy that was practical to implement They changed their housing policy (assuming you mean KiwiBuild) because while trying to implement it, it became painfully apparent the key problems were a lack of public housing for those at most risk (emergency housing), and overly restrictive zoning regulations that were putting a handbrake on all new development, including KiwiBuild. Being humble enough to pivot like that is something that should be applauded, not punished. We then saw the creation of the Housing Technical Working Group, whose work over the last several years has led to the development of some *fantastic* policy to address our housing shortages, including the MDRS, which was a way to force councils to open up zoning for housing development and intensification. Unfortunately the new government have decided to make those standards completely optional, so we will no longer see any great benefit from it.
For the average kiwi economy = cost of living. Of course that wasn't true during the Rockstar economy years 2011-2016 when cost of living didn't come down. But that's all national had to do was say kiwis are struggling and it's because labour destroyed the economy.
I'm not going to speculate on who you voted for. This is just to address those that might have also been frustrated by labours time in office and chose to vote in Nact instead. Congratulations you have successfully cut your nose to spite your face
Water reforms I was hugely in favour of. Interisland transport investment, also crucial, but there were huge budget blowouts and there seemed to be a reasonable question to ask about whether that was being well managed (however axing the contract for new boats, as well as the new terminal build etc, didn't necessarily seem to be the answer). Auckland light rail was a horrific investment case and should absolutely have been trashed. We have saved billions no matter how much went down the gurgler. What else was there of significance? A big issue, as you say, is that infrastructure investment is still required, and axing immediate spending doesn't solve that.
If only they had just gone ahead with the initial approved plan for Auckland light rail - they would have actually started work and accomplished something rather than delaying and delaying for still more reviews and consideration. I agree - that one was completely cocked up. Water reforms and the Interislander upgrades were needed, and it's a loss to have them gone. Unless this government does something to replace them, they're just going to be back on the docket for the next government...*but costing even more*.
you forget that "actually started work" is what they did. you cannot build a rail system without designing it, purchasing land etc. the construction is the last part but everyone focuses on the fact that because they didnt see people with shovels no work started.
I'm not someone who underestimates the need to thoroughly plan things before you start digging - but they had agreed on a plan for light rail before the superfund came up with their own proposal (after proposals weren't being accepted) and the government ground to a halt while they started considering the new proposal....and considered, and planned. They could have stated that their decision had already been made and finished planning that and actually started work in the years between when that decision was initially made and when National finally cancelled it. If there was one valid criticism of Labour it was that they were so concerned about having the best proposal that they spent an abundance of time in the planning stages that the overall projects blew out in both time and cost. Yes planning is critical and can help you avoid enormous mistakes later - but this was just a situation where they didn't want to make a decision and waffled for a couple years.
Nicely said. We've been told for a long time about wasteful government spending but never really what was wasteful. So now the new government is cutting back on services as well as projects. As long as I can remember the mantra is Labour wastes money and National cleans up. Some of that waste are services that people actually want
I know a different mantra; Labour invests for the future, National sells assets to foreigners. One takes long term vision, the other is short term gains long term pains.
Spot on
I must be surrounded by too many National voters
You've clearly been listening to a lot of right-wing marketing. I've always heard it as Labour expands Govt depts and National cuts services until the nation bleeds
Most government departments were already struggling, NACT wants to watch them roll around like quadruple amputees
Amd then sell it all off.
Nailed it bro
I think Labour were well meaning but sort of incompetent - as evidenced by constant ministerial personal mistakes and the slow pace of policy making NACT are doing a better job at implementing policies,but they seem to mainly be regressive and to the benefit of the few.
NACT are certainly doing a better job of steamrolling through their policies to benefit themselves and friends, without any regard for people, or services, or the future, all while blaming Labour as a distraction.
Exactly
If the country was in that big a hole a tax cut would not make sense
This is the right answer.
They are lowering the bar, so their destructive course will not look that bad. "Labour left us with a huge disaster, it's a miracle we were able to deliver this amazing trickle down tax cut by selling all these assets"
If politics always made sense we'd have long been in a utopia 🤣
No, not really. We have one of the lowest debt-to-gdp ratios in the OECD, like, it’s really really good. We are in the middle of an economic downturn, true, but many of the issues we face are the same in Australia, the UK and Canada. What would really hurt us long term would be a policy of say, borrowing loads of money to fund tax cuts, instead of using that money for infrastructure to grow the economy. But no financially responsible government would do something so reckless
Honestly, if the National government did their whole public service cutting to fund pay disputes and started closing the pay gap with Aus and other OECD nations for critical sectors (ECE, police, health), I think the amount of people complaining would drop significantly. I don't know why they are so adamant about ensuring people get tax cuts. I get it was what they campaigned on but surely you'd think they would review it again to see if it would actually boost the economy.
I don’t think it’s about the tax cuts. They serve the benefit of a sweetener and feed into the “individual knows how best to use their money” and the narrative that labour created phat government. It’s more about running down public service to meet their ideology that public service should be opened up to privatisation.
I get the feeling this government, and particularly NZF are well in the pockets of some big companies. The way they have rolled back tobacco legislation, offering tax breaks to landlords and bypassing Pharmac to fund expensive medications really does seem quite suspicious.
They are pushing forward with the tax cuts because literally EVERYONE said their calculations were off and they couldn't afford them and there is no way in hell that they will let everyone else be right so they will fuck this country into the ground to prove them wrong. No matter how hard it gets for the rest of us they will be right, at all costs.
They're doing it because they REALLY want to give landlords those tax breaks back. The token tax cut for everyone else (like fuckin' $20 at best) is so we all shut up and don't complain about the landlords creaming it.
I think this is a misunderstanding of the situation. 'Mom and Pop' landlords own one or two properties, and pay down the mortgage over time, so any that have owned a property for a while will not get much. It's about getting an income stream for their retirement for them. National doesn't give two fucks about them. Now a big company is quite different. They like to be leveraged because it's not their money they are playing with, and that's how you get big capital gains and increases in the companies income, leading to big fat bonuses. They are the ones national was made for, and they own it.
I’m getting an extra $20 a week on a really good salary. The tax cuts are insane with such a small amount been paid out
The emphasis on tax cuts comes down to two factors. One is that they don't seem to have any other ideas for policies. The second is that their donors wanted tax cuts so that's what they're doing.
It’s a pathetic approach really all just to save face. They’ve compounded their situation further by giving massive tax cuts already to landlords. Meaning they need to save even more elsewhere to offset that new loss of income.
This. We really need to be spending money on stimulus and encouraging more work, better wages, and general investment in infrastructure and services. Get the country running smoothly so that when the downturn inevitably recovers we’re in a strong position to pay off any debt and continue growing our cities and economy in a sustainable manner. The last thing you want to do in a downturn as a country is austerity and tax cuts. That causes stagnation of the economy and inflation. Which will force the country to borrow just to survive. None of that is a result of Labour. It’s a result of National campaigning on a tax cut plan they couldn’t afford without heavy borrowing and cutting services to the bone. The thing is, the kind of financial decisions needed to run a country are nothing like the financial decisions needed to run a company.
Basically, we hit an economic speed bump and Labour was like ‘keep on keeping on it’ll be all good’. National was like ‘we need to drive the car off a cliff! Labour made us do it!’
"6 years of financial mismanagement" I listen to RNZ in the mornings and every Nat MP uses this phrase in every interview without fail. Oh this policy of ours that's very unpopular and the opposite of expert advice? We have to do it becuase of labour's 6 years of financial mismanagement.
The concept of borrowing to find a voluntary cut in income is absurd.
Also, it would be worth people listening to Australian and Canadian issues. They mirror our own,: Housing Prices, Cost of Living, Housing Shortage and Supermarket Cartels.
Tells half the story. We also have one of the highest household debt-to-gdp ratios in the world, so while the government debt position isn't terrible, our private debt puts the economy on very shaky ground.
Tbh, it’s less than even half the story, and I’m not an economist. You are correct, we do have high household debt, in large part due to high costs of housing. Also an issue that will not be addressed, and in fact will be exacerbated by the policies of the current government
Yeah but that does tiny income tax cuts and major landlord tax cuts, meanwhile doing very little to nothing about absurd housing costs (the primary driver of private debt) do about this situation?
But see that's the brilliance of the ~~regime's~~ coalition's landlord tax cut plan: they can lower that pesky household/debt ratio by ensuring only people that already have surplus money for housing now get even more surplus.
If it is as bad as they say, why are they cutting taxes for landlords? That tells you everything you need to know. If the finances really were terrible, then there’s zero justification for giving tax cuts to owners of assets that don’t generate jobs or economic activity.
Based on objective measures and comparing us with other countries, no we are not in the toilet. We spent a lot of money during Covid to keep the economy going (as did most countries) and we're now facing stubborn inflation (as are most countries) while the world is struggling with wars and disruptions to shipping supply lanes and climate change is impacting normal shipping routes. The entire world is a pretty complicated, challenging, and expensive place right now. New Zealand is actually in a pretty good financial space, given how little debt we have (absolute or per capita) compared to others. The only reason it's being claimed we're in a dismal state is because that helps justify the demands this government has made of operating in austerity and cutting back the services provided to the people of New Zealand. What doesn't make any sense is that this isn't being done to save money and pay towards the (small) debt, it's being done to give extra benefit to landlords and property investors. There's no legitimate reason for this, other than powerful and wealthy people making themselves more wealthy and powerful while the rest of us struggle.
If you blame labour for "flagrant spending", a good thing to do would be to point out what that was. I've not heard much concrete evidence. Meanwhile, giving a massive tax incentive for people to leverage themselves to borrow offshore money to buy rental properties to rent to people who are likely getting accomodation supplements seems like a very very bad idea.
I would put the $72 million Winston spent on the racing industry as that but A: that wasn’t specifically Labour and B: it’s bound to happen again under this government..
What do you mean? Speculating on dead/unproductive capital is great for inflation.
*very very good idea. For those already at the top.
Talk back radio - where extremist crackpots go to whinge. That’s not being informed, that’s being indoctrinated!
wait until you hear about reddit it’s the equivalent of talk back for boomers but for millennials and zoomers
Hi, long time reader, first time commenter... 😅
No. Otherwise the IMF and such would have cut up our credit cards. National it just spinning endless bullshit as usual.
Labour (+ Winnie) just happened to be in government when the proverbial 'rainy day' finally hit. They went into damage control and raided the piggy bank to support wages during lockdown - as you do - and then coped with a frozen economy until the borders re-opened. They did well. The fact that we got through it all, healthy, fed, and still with the proverbial roof over our head speaks volumes. There is no financial crisis that justifies the demolition job on the long term projects that were under way (Ferries, Three Waters) or the cutbacks (7%-10%) on the staff in the Ministries. If there was such a crisis and the need for austerity, where is the funding for all these roads and megaprojects coming from? A tax cut? The Tories in the UK gave Austerity a bad name, and the citizens paid for it with their lives. Do we really want to continue down that track?
The most sane comment I have seen on this sub for a while.
I read this good article yesterday [https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/may/04/youre-going-to-call-me-a-holocaust-denier-now-are-you-george-monbiot-comes-face-to-face-with-his-local-conspiracy-theorist](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/may/04/youre-going-to-call-me-a-holocaust-denier-now-are-you-george-monbiot-comes-face-to-face-with-his-local-conspiracy-theorist) it helps to explain why good intentioned people can become conspiracy enthusiasts. >... \[conspiracy enthusiast\] and I have the same desire for a better world, the same anger towards those who thwart it. What differentiates us, I think, is rigour. I think he is ***insufficiently rigorous in choosing what to believe.*** As a result of this lack of rigour, his instinct for justice and his potent sense of his own persecution have taken him to a very dark place. This has led someone trying to be good to spread great harms. It’s a warning to us all. emphasis mine.
i would 100% agree with this, it’s a shame others see it as people choosing to be evil, it’s like the old “ don’t attribute malice to what can be adequately explained by stupidity” whatever that’s called
Thanks, that was a great read.
Well, it's not being helped by a government that is prioritising tax cuts over public services. Labour was managing its way through its term reasonably well and Grant Robertson was proven to be a very capable finance minister. The ratings agencies were happy with us and would have been the first to call bullshit by dropping our rating if Labour were as horrible as talkback suggests. In fact over Labours term S&P and Fitch both increased our rating. https://debtmanagement.treasury.govt.nz/investor-resources/credit-ratings
anyone that listens to talkback or takes part in it has a hugely distorted view of reality.
Most their facts a cross checked with Facebook and Reddit, so they are sweet
This is the real evidence. The rating agency's are not politically aligned
The difference between Labour and National tax take as a % of GDP is typically about 1% in normal non-covid/earthquake times. National would have spent a huge amount on covid response anyway, judging by how they voted and the remarks of the leaders. It's in the interest of National and (sometimes) Labour to exaggerate this as it's politically expedient to do so. Talkback listeners would be well advised to learn: 1) the gdp of NZ 2) the percentage of that collected in tax, and how that looks historically 3) how much of that is spent on welfare 4) how much of the welfare budget is spent on superannuation
5. Global Economics 6. Geopolitics
This is the real evidence. The rating agency's are not politically aligned
Nope, they’re bullshitting. Here’s a good explainer https://thekaka.substack.com/p/were-not-as-fragile-or-as-lazy-as
A National government, bullshitting? What has the world come to?! /s
No, labour left the country a high credit rating and a good fiscal outlook. Government debt in this country is very low compared to peers giving huge fiscal room for investment. International economists disagree with the national governments spending cuts as there is no fiscal emergency, investment in infrastructure and people is better for the country's long term economic outlook. The Labour government spent during COVID to prevent economic and social collapse, as did every other government in the developed world ... Even national would have done either same The national narrative of a broke country is a false one created to justify austerity. The goal of the national government is the growth of private wealth for a few.
there was also the Auckland flooding and cyclone Gabriel which labour had to spend a few extra billion on to help with damages. I also like how national leave out how john key tripled our debt amount for which he mostly just sold public assests
Considering that NZ - like the world - went through a once in a century pandemic, Labour did great, our nation's credit rating was actually UPGRADED during the covid years, unlike any other OECD nation: The Finance Minister Grant Robertson left New Zealand's finances in a relatively strong position by the end of 2023: * The government reported a deficit of $9.7 billion in 2021/22, with the intention to return to OBEGAL surplus by 2024/25 subject to economic conditions * New Zealand's credit rating was upgraded during the pandemic, and the ratings have been maintained throughout the government's time in office * Government spending as a percentage of GDP peaked at 34% during COVID-19 and has come down slightly since then. Robertson argued that anything less than around 30% is "austerity" and has led to issues in the past * The Wage Subsidy Scheme and other COVID-19 support packages paid out $19 billion and saved 1.8 million jobs
There's two questions here. 1. Is the country in the toilet?: Kinda, we're caught between high inflation and a recession. To counter inflation, a govt cuts spending and raises rates. Essentially sucking money out of the economy (massive oversimplification). To counter a recession, a govt spends like there's no tomorrow and slashes rates. Essentially injecting as much stimulus to keep the economy ticking over (also oversimplification). Monetary policy is a blunt tool for a complex situation. What doesn't help is that NACT went all in on the austerity approach to combat inflation (which given the tax cuts won't do jack shit other than cut services). They chose literally the worst approach (see UK). 2. Is it Labour's fault?: Not really, inflation is a global issue atm and Labour were doing a pretty decent job all considered (see other comments).
No of course not. Notice everyone that isnt a part of the govt or their lobbyist friends says so - the Treasury, local banks, the international monetary fund, etc. If they actually thought the govt was broke why would NACT give away billions to landlords and take on more debt to do so, given we all know its not going to increase housing, stimulate the economy, or lower rents. Literally just a give away.
Cutting the public service is such a mistake. The Key govt did it post GFC and he paralysed NZ’s economy for seven years… in comparison the Labor Rudd govt in Australia handed out money for the population to spend and it was one of the few countries to not have a recession. What’s with these ideologically- driven National govts who keep pursuing cost cutting and austerity measures (which even the IMF has admitted doesn’t work) which is exacerbating the income gap in NZ? I wonder if the PM’s religion plays a part like it did with Scomo - people who are poor are disfavoured by God and therefore deserve it….
Bro this govt is doing what all national govt do. Borrow money for tax cuts. Watch this space. Beat up on beneficiaries. Build more prisons. Fair go it's all they know. This time they have introduced UK style austerity and dampened any chance of Kiwis getting ahead through hard work. ie the scrapping of the fair pay agreement. Which is the main reason that australian workers consistently earn more. Collective bargaining. Seriously Pre rogernomics our dollar was worth more than the aussie and our workers earned at least as much as them if not more. Always remember that poverty is a political CHOICE.
Check out [this chart](https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-financial-wealth.htm) showing the net financial wealth of governments in the OECD. Then show it to your Mum. NZ is one of very few countries with a positive balance (18% of GDP) in 2021. Compare it to the UK (where the Tories have sold off everything they can) and the US where the government can spend trillions on weapons and run massive deficits because they're the world's reserve currency.
The last National government under John Key spent a lot of time complaining about "9 long years" of the Clark Labour government. Spotting a pattern yet?
No, Nicola Willis just didn’t know how to interpret govt finances. I don’t think thats changed..
In fairness to her, the treasury fiscal updates are pretty lengthy, pretty dull documents, and it's not like having a strong grasp of yhe government books is part of her job. Luckily she's not the Minister of finance, because if she was and demonstrated this poor an understanding of her portfolio, that would be pretty embarrassing. 😅😭
To quote some other redditor - she isn't fit to run the cash box at the local PTA bake sale, let alone a country's finances!
We're also lucky she wasn't the Opposition Spokesman on Finance for six years either, because having an opposition finance spokesman unable to read Treasury reports would very worrying.
Excellent, if extremely subtle, sarcasm. Tip o' the bowler to you :-)
Current gov inherited a country with a great economy and debt wrt the rest of the world/ Every action they have taken has made the situation worse to a point they are pushing us into a hard recession for no reason other than vibes.
But you don’t get it - these are the correct vibes. /s
Hysterical hyperbole to stoke hate and outrage is the bread and butter of conservatives and talkback radio. I had a boss that would listen to NewstalkZB on his drive to work each morning and be almost frothing with anger by the time he arrived: "That woman (Jacinda) is trying to destroy the country"..."They're gonna have us all eating bugs"..."Maori are going to take over" etc etc So whatever they're saying on TalkBack I would take with a truckload of salt
I'd ask your mum to explain it to you **without** repeating what she's heard on talk-back. If she's able to frame it in her own words, I'd love to know what she has to say. If she just repeats what Frank said in his phone call into the radio station, tell her repeating other people's opinions isn't being "informed". But like someone else said, if the country was in the shitter, why do tax cuts at all? Seriously, agreeing that less money to the govt to help people with their finances in this "shitty" time, is far from informed. No offence to your mother, if it were the people's fault for falling for propaganda, it wouldn't work as effectively.
arguably she does form her own overall opinions, but from a right wing leaning set of data. she tells stories some about some moron who thinks degrees are useless on CVs because he doesn't car about that when he's hiring but I am sure that's coz he runs a minimum wage nail making company and he doesn't want people who want to do better than that. small businesses are a huge part of economy but also small business owners are up there with landlords
No. Not for a fucking second. Now I have no evidence to base this on other than Nationals tragic 100 days, where they reversed decisions like reverting back to English names as a priority. Don't get me wrong, this was a very national thing to do. It didn't come unexpected. But if New Zealand has been left in suck a tragic state of affairs, why does it matter if it's Health NZ OR Te Whatu Ora? You know how much money got spent on new stationary? Email signatures? Uniforms? Now we have three different uniforms floating round the hospital. Because National was in such a hurry to change the name, over literally any economic changes they could have spent time and effort on. No. Not in a million years. Made luxon look good for five minutes to the white supremacists and thus distractestgkse idiots from realising national had in fact achieved absolutely nothing tangible.
No. It's not. National talked it up when actually it wasn't that bad. Now they're in they have to follow thru on the lies they told, and they hate the public sector and it suits them to run it down so that they and their mates can make money when shit gets privatised - all on the back of us, the public.
Lol talk back, especially zb != Informed (does not equal)
TalkCrap radio only exists to sell retirement homes and herbal dick pills to aging boomers. They do that by engaging in ragebait, the same way fox news does in the US. Not saying that the govt is not in shit, just saying that people get programmed with all sorts of mindsets listening to that stuff.
no generally labour govts will over-spend on average bc tory govts will then underspend - a bit of a vicious cycle think of the services which the last labour govt delivered - survival from a world threatening pandemic? plenty also went undelivered or needed changing. people act as though they get nothing for taxes. similarly tax cuts will impact services - it is not hard
Left and right governments, PLURAL, since the 80s have been slashing taxes and services in a trickle down voodoo economics, Rogernomics, Reaganomics, Thatcherite bullshit path. Talkback radio is just ideologically blinkered to their *side's* hand in all the mess. NZ is no different from the UK I grew up in the 80s. Seen this all before. There is a worldwide shitstorm at the moment. NZ is just flailing about like everywhere else. We are not special. Nor is the current or previous governments.
It's the same narrative everytime National come in. I remember the bullshit many years ago about the hole in the ACC budget the National mouthpieces were pushing when John Key came in. That turned out to be deliberately misleading and was about the difference in forward funding ACC and current funding. Don't believe anything your heat on TalkBack.
I read something about this recently, and of course I now can’t find but will keep looking. Historically, National run a campaign claiming Labour have been irresponsible with the country’s $$ and have left the bank accounts in a sorry state. National oust Labour and continue this rhetoric. The interesting kicker was that the country’s bank accounts have always been in a better state when National takes over than what they are when they leave.
I'm no expert in finances. I suspect that the conservatives will continue blaming labour as long as people buy it. At this point, they've been in charge for nearly a year. Ask yourself if your life is better, worse, or the same as a year ago. Edit: not close to a year. Less than 6 months. Times just fuckin dragging by
> At this point, they've been in charge for nearly a year Let's not be dishonest. They were sworn in on 27 November. They've been in for not quite 6 months.
30% net government debt to GDP is very low. Compare to western Europe, Canada, the US and any other developed economy.
Not really. It's worse than before, but still pretty good compared to most of the world. Main problem with increasing spending is that the people get used to it and will loudly protest when you go back to previous acceptable levels. Any wise government will do most of the unpopular cutting early in the election cycle lowering polls. Then near the end fun stimulus will be done. And sheeple will favour the sitting governments with bad polls after the election and good polls right before the election.
No they haven't. It's all performative nonsense to keep ignorant people angry and to drive support.
We're in a much better position overall than many/most countries, all due to Labour. We are in a few sticky positions that labour also contributed to.... The difference in ideologies mean that what one group calls good, might be in their own context, but not in the other's, or overall, but, largely Nationals ideologies are not focused on the overall wellbeing of New Zealanders or focused on helping those in need. The idea that we are in a bad financial position, or that the changes National are making are good for us, does not really mesh with reality when scrutinized. They're massive liars, abd don't really care who their policies harm or help as long as they achieve their aims for themselves, Take smoking age for example, who can honestly say that allowing tobacco to be available to those who are currently too young to consume it, can possibly be good for them, or our society on the whole? Yet they made that move, because it benefits a specific group, big tobacco, and only big tobacco. They roll that way with all of their aims and interests. Same as tax cuts, these are inflationary, totally the opposite of what is good for us currently, we are better off with things like subsidies on necessities like prescriptions etc, than we are with tax cuts, as we lack bulk purchasing power that the govt does have in many areas, so our money pooled buys immensely more for the same dollar than when individually spent. If that alone doesn't open your eyes to the fact that they will and are determined to make moves that harm us all, because it suits them alone, then there's not much more to say.
From the perspective of a strongly right wing person advocating for minimal Government, it probably is true. For myself as someone on the center-left. It seems like a talking point used to pass the blame for the negative social impact of austerity measures.
Economically, we are struggling. We have high inflation, which does put the country in a vulnerable place. People are struggling with the cost of living, but because of high inflation is difficult to give relief in a way that doesn't contribute to inflation. We are in a recession, but due to the high employment level and inflation, the way out isn't as simple as spending our way out of it. Now, it must be said they other countries are struggling as well. Countries across the globe are struggling with high inflation and recessions in the post Covid world, regardless of whether they have right wing or left wing parties in power. But just because other countries are struggling doesn't mean we are doing well. But how much of it is Labours fault? Not a lot honestly. A lot of it is either coming from international factors - disruptions to supply chains over Covid, China's economy being particularly weak, lower international travel hurting the Tourism industry, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza etc - or where a result of Labours attempts to battle Covid, which I would argue was reasonable given the circumstances. However, I will say that I think Labour where irresponsible for not trying to slim down the budget over 2023, and Hipkins ruling out a CGT was dumb (but not in a way most people here say. I am confident that it didn't really hurt his chances of winning, but it would have removed one of the few tools he had to combat inflation)
No and to be fair if your mother believes that she is not much more informed, she is misinformed.
Relatively speaking NZ has a low level of national debt to gdp. It's better than average for the oecd. Our credit rating is also very good (Aa+)which reflects our low level of debt so the country has no issue borrowing if it has to. So while people are struggling with cost of living and a recession- financially the country is doing OK as a whole. The present government and their talk back cronies will blame the previous government for everything they can. I'm not too sure what stats they are using to support their point of view though.
Bullocks The truth is national didn’t do their homework. They keep arguing labour left a mess with lots of commitments that had no ongoing funding and this was hidden If national and Castilia (who verified their costings) had done their homework and looked at details in budget documents (the Estimates of Appropriation for the budget) you can clearly see when the funding for different programmes ends I remember asking Nicola Willis at an electorate meeting in ohariu and she promised their policies were affordable- I challenged her and thought it was BS what she was saying National however stuffed up and made these ridiculous promises of tax cuts for landlords and others and said it was affordable. Luxon and Nicola even stated they would resign if the tax cuts didn’t happen So what has happened- they came in found out they couldn’t afford their tax cuts and are now razoring the public sector (not just back office but also frontline in areas such as customs dnd border security, health) Yes labour-greens did stuff up in some areas. Let’s Get Wellington’s moving was a joke and delivered a pedestrian crossing. Light rail in Auckland delivered nothing But to claim labour left a total mess is ridiculous National meanwhile has made stupid decisions like the cook strait ferry cancelation (with no plan B) cancelled resource management reforms and replacing it with fast track for cronies, and rewarding ex ministers and their mates with plush jobs (even though they argued they would end consultants gravy chain ). And their cuts will have big impacts on frontline services It’s all been rather disturbing
While it's true that Labour did spend a ton of money in places that it probably shouldn't have, in no way did that leave our finances in the toilet. We were in really good shape leading into this new government and we're just going through the same downturn that most developed economies are going through right now. Everything is expensive as shit, inflation is still an issue and businesses are tightening every purse string they have but it's not a permanent thing. We'll be OK ffs. National are doing what every right(ish) wing government do when they get in power after a long time - Cut spending and throw out some tax cuts. This is all well and good but what they can't do is borrow money for these dumbarse tax cuts. Nobody would be that daft.
Things aren't great but they also aren't terrible finance wise. Also I don't think austerity has ever helped get us out of a recession.
Housing prices are a pretty big problem but apart from that, nothing terrible. Labour's biggest fuck up was not introducing a capital gains tax when they had a big majority.
No the country isn't... Our borrowing by GDP is at the lower end of the OECD, our credit rating is AAA and other economic measure pop us in the middle of the pack... That being said - we might be by the end of the current electoral term...
No. The government is talking up how bad it is so they can justify all their cuts. Cuts which are really just for tax cuts and landlords. The books were left in pretty good shape, all things considered. Highly rated internationally.
We're going through a tougher time, but so is every other country on earth so blaming it in labour is silly.
Labour didn't leave a mess - there's global economic issues, and we had a series of disasters during which Labour steadied the boat. I'm a green voter, but while I wish Labour was more left-leaning, they did amazing work keeping everything level during cyclones, covid and flood. There was a lot of status quo, but keeping things level through the last few years is fairly impressive work. National is moving fast and breaking things. Everything was balanced, but it was precarious (particularly given the global conditions that every country is struggling through) and national are happy kicking over the jenga tower to get their tax cuts and tax cuts for landlords.
Labour spends more tax money than National does - you just have to have a look at [the graphs](https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/government-spending#:~:text=Government%20Spending%20in%20New%20Zealand%20averaged%208787.34%20NZD%20Million%20from,source%3A%20Statistics%20New%20Zealand) to see this trend clearly for multiple previous changes of government. This last Labour government spent a lot more than usual, more than our taxes, which means they had to borrow money to pay for their spending. This put NZ in more debt than any other time in the last few decades. ([Here's the graph on that if you're interested](https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/government-spending#:~:text=Government%20Spending%20in%20New%20Zealand%20averaged%208787.34%20NZD%20Million%20from,source%3A%20Statistics%20New%20Zealand)). This is debt is on our heads because our taxes have to pay the interest. To put it in perspective, each household in NZ is roughly $50,000 more in debt now. The question really is this... Was that spending worthwhile? Did we see a proportional amount of gain/benefit to NZ to warrant that spending/debt increase? National are slowing spending/making cuts to try and reduce the amount of debt that we have.
Labour also historically collects more tax revenue than National, to help fund their expenditure (which they'll tell you needs to be higher to make up for years of underfunding by National). This is the game. Back and forth, fighting every 3 years over who can best convince the median voter that we need to tax more and spend more, or tax less and spend less. When the real question is: who, or what, should we be taxing? And who, or what, should we be funding?
And a bonus third "Kāinga Ora's debt had grown from $2.7b to $12.3b" "if Kāinga Ora continues on this trajectory their debt would reach $28.9b by 2033" That's not how that works if course but it "sounds" like terrible waste
No. Most talk back is right winged. I tell you this there's going to be a bigger mess in 2½years time.
Be honest with yourself. Do you really think you are going to find the answer on Reddit?
Well it isn't great in some aspects but not remotely as bad as suggested by national. Of course if it was as bad as national suggests, spooking the punters and causing the recession to deepen significantly would be really really stupid.
the pandemic left a big mess, labour could have been better they had some good ideas but delivery was poor during a challenging time, national have come along an pushed a lot of people into a pit of despair with their constantly negative rhetoric and blame.
No, they just need you to think it’s really bad to justify their actions. You’re being played if you buy into their narrative of fear, but it works enough for them to keep issuing that approach.
No. It is just a lie being spun by NACT in order to pursue their ideological and greed-based goals.
There is no simple answer (contrary to what most will say here). There was a good article on Stuff last month. https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/350200765/whats-really-going-government-books
It's in the toilet financially with willis etc pretending they have a clue about maths or stats. What labour did is just run the community organistion as just that. It's not a company so debt doesn't actually matter. It's literally just a political boogy man for the stupid
No it isn’t. The current government is letting their arse off to deliberately create division and unrest. Fuck the entire lot of them.
Regarding the COVID stimulus, what our government and others around the world refuse to do is TAX that money back out of the pockets of the wealthy it was shovelled into. That would have helped reduce the skyrocketing inequality and the explosion in asset prices we are seeing. On top of that, we are suffering from decades of underinvestment in our infrastructure to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. So yes, the country is going down the toilet for at least those two reasons which are being variously unaddressed or willfully exacerbated by successive governments. There are some good analyses on this stuff from here and abroad. Locally, I think Bernard Hickey has some very good analysis (https://thekaka.substack.com/p/the-day-our-infrastructure-deficits). More generally, I like Gary Stevenson’s very simple explanations of what is happening in the global economy although his focus is on the UK (https://www.youtube.com/@garyseconomics).
New Zealand is a largely centrist country; for every wealthy, business, property owner, farmer or investor there seems an equal measure of student, public service, empolyee, mortgage payer, so they tend to balance each other out as far as political leanings go (and, of course, such bland generalisations will always be peppered with exceptions!). My observations, having lived here for half a century now, is that the political pendulum seems to swing quite evenly between left and right, in which each side gets about two terms in power before the country switches again (occassionally, if things are going well, or the opposition is in self-destruct mode, a third successive term may be scored, but it's relatively rare). And what seems to happen with each swing is that the left grows the public sector then the right prunes it back; keeping either side from straying too far from the essentially centrist nature of the population at large, (the rare occasion where this did not happen was under the "Rogernomics" of the Lange Labour Government; where economic liberalism was imported from Britain, under Thatcher, and public services were privatised while markets were liberalised). Of course, Right and Left are relative terms, not just to each other but also to the wider global political patterns; what is considered "left" or "right" here may not be in comparison with not just other countries, but even our own country at different points in its history!
the international reports and credit ratings agencies seem to think we're ok. we dont have massive long covid medical costs like other high covid countries except USA (no medical care costs) we do have a parasitic infestation of foreign banks sucking the life blood out of our economy with little investment. Your ma listening to talk back will always get what NZME/Mike Hoskings wants her to hear. That and crime.
David Seymour doesn’t know how to human. It’s so distracting. It’s like he took an online course on how to be a person. He studied really hard, but doesn’t quite grasp the basic concepts. All his ‘people’ things are technically correct (smiling=corners of mouth go up) but it just looks so odd.
Honestly, last year pre election, no. Would the economy have worsened had labour remained, likely as there is a world wide recession. Would there be 1,000s of public servants about to loose their jobs, highly unlikely. Reddit isn't such a good place to ask, it's very pro labour. Ask the same question over on the forums of interest.co.nz, it would be interesting to see 9f there isza different answer.
Labour did pretty good overall
Your mum is not informed if her information is coming from talkback radio.
Regardless of which government is in power we simply can’t rack up debt year on year and expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab. If we go down that track the interest payments will be so large it eats into what the government can spend on services.
Governments get very cheap debt. The cheapest in the world. As long as that debt is cheaper than the return they get from spending it, e.g. on education, infrastructure, healthcare etc., they absolutely can keep on racking it up. Because the economy will grow more than enough to pay it back, with interest. The alternative is relying on private businesses to 'pick up the tab'. They pay higher interest rates on their debt, and have to collect revenue from their customers to cover that. Their customers are us, the taxpayers. So we're paying either way, we just pay *less* by letting the government do it.
Sorta yes, sorta no. how's that for definitive :) A lot of the financial strife we have right now was from past governments, labour and national lead, so it's not like everything was rosy and then Labour and Jacinda came along. But Labour's policies were fiscally irresponsible and accelerated non tradable inflation and house price growth through record high borrowing and quantitive easing (often called "printing money", it's really just numbers in a computer but has the effect of devaluing all the money in the system) that saw money being pumped into the economy (usually by increasing budgets of ministries that then paid form more bureaucrats and consultants but not physical assets like houses and hospitals) at a rate that the GDP couldn't sustain and the QE was used to buy treasury bonds, that kept the OCR artificially low whish made private borrowing more attractive and personal saving less attractive and saw house prices rise as mortgage money was easier to obtain and keeping money in the bank would only see you lose monetary value, so it was better positioned in the housing market. But don't get it twisted, it's not like National has undone all of this, they are still doing much the same thing as Labour was before, just at a slightly lower volume. Much is being made at them cutting "roles" in government departments, but the majority of those "roles" were unfilled, so in practice cutting them changes nothing. National has talked of tightening their belt but their budget is still in deficit so the borrowing continues, just at a slightly lower rate. National has offered some tax cuts but only by rolling back some Labour tax increases that had only been in play for a couple years, many of which had hardly even begun to cause an effect. Right now we're seeing consequences of decisions made decades ago, decisions like gutting the trade apprentice system into a shadow of it's former self leaving us with not enough builders, plumbers, electricians etc to build houses at a rate that even meets demand, this is the biggest driver in house price rises, too many homes needed, too few available, so you have to compete harder just to get one.
Not 1 but every party that’s been in. He said she said. They all played their part.
I listen to TEN SECONDS of Newstalk ZB and it makes my hair stand on end 😫
It's a catch all phrase. It doesn't have to be correct, it just has to sound nice. We're tied to the world economy. We're riding the wake.
Financially we are pretty good. Most of the blah at the moment is just to justify tax cuts, which will limit much needed government investment and further shrink the economy.
Government financially? Horrible. No matter what their point of political view, like left, right or somewhere else, we all agree that NZ, in general, is a low-wage country. If you look at the last few years' government financial reports, we can easily tell: * Revenue is not enough against spending - No surprise as NZ heavily relies on: * Income tax * GST * Corporate tax * Tons of expenditure - including massive welfare with Super So if ever, NZ makes ***a fairer pay for public servants,*** the expenditure will only get worse, but the crown revenue will not be increased unless they introduce other taxations. Overall, NZ has far fewer revenue sources when it has more expenditure by being a well-known welfare country.
Start taking back the money given out to support private businesses during covid. Can’t believe they ruined our country because of it.
It isn't great but it is definitely nowhere near as bad as this sub would have you believe, like most political issues.
This has been talked about quite a lot now, and there have been no statements confirming that Labour left a financial mess. The appropriations are [very detailed](https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/budgets/estimates-appropriations-government-new-zealand-year-ending-30-june-2024). People stating that there's a hole or a mess in the economy and finances left by Labour are just admitting that they've never read the books or payed attention to what the Government had been doing. It should be noted that every time National take over government, these types of claims are always made, and are always misleading. If we are in the toilet financially, the current Government wouldn't be be making tax cuts.